The Renaissance of Film Photography among Young People

[Tom-Thomas]

On one hand I am extremely happy about this recent renewal of interest in film photography among the younger crowd, which in no small part has saved film photography from being totally obsolete. But on the other hand, I wonder how long this fad will last and when it finally fades away, then what will become of film photography?

I am quite certain, from my own observations, that this renaissance of film photography among young people is just a fad instead of a real enthusiasm and appreciation of film photography. Not much different from any fad du jour popularized by any one of those social media influencers.

My best friend owns and runs a local camera store-film lab (where I hang out at quite regularly). Since the last 4 years or so, his film rolls and processing sales have gone from next to zero to now accounting for a good 30/40% of the store's profit. It's great money. But unfortunately both of us regularly see the ugly and sad side of this trend. Below are some examples. They sounds like poor jokes but I swear that they are real events that we both witness.

(1) Most of the customers do NOT want the negatives back. Most just want the film to be scanned so they can post the images on social media. Not even prints. They either don't come back for it or instruct the staff at the start to trash it.

(2) One time, when the store personnel asked a 20-something whether or not he wanted the negatives back, the young man went, "The what now?" So the store personnel pull up a roll of sample negatives to show him. The guy asked, "What is this brown thing?" He was puzzled.

(3) A group of like 3 or 4 young women came in to buy films. One of the women in the group asked, "Why are you shooting film. Just use your iPhone." The other woman replied, "It's a thing now, don't you know?" They all giggled.

(4) Then we had this innocent (just trying to be nice here) young woman who, I saw, kept opening the camera back. I could clearly see a roll of film had been loaded in the camera. After about the 3rd time I witnessed her opening the camera back, I finally couldn't hold back anymore and asked her politely why she was doing it. Did she need help loading the film correctly? She replied, "How do I see the photos? Is there a button to push or something? I opened it and I still don't see any photo. Where are the photos?"

(5) Almost 1/3 of all the rolls they processed are blank, or severely underexposed, or have light leaks all over the place. And the customers never know why and many of them just blame the lab for ruining their films.

(6) A full 70% of them, I would say, don't know what the aperture, shutter speed, ISO, focal length mean or how they work in taking photos. Not even the slightest clue. The worst thing is they refuse to even read the manual for the camera even though the majority of these manuals are still readily available online.

(7) The worst of it is that many of these youngsters are now "professional" photographers who charge people money for taking photos with the "film look"! Routinely, these "professional" photographers would come in the store and ask the staff questions like, "I have a shoot tomorrow, can you tell how to get the very blurry background I see in these photos?" So they pull up some photos on Instagram to show the staff. Or, they will ask, "I have a shoot tomorrow, can you show me how to use the flash?" And they pull up some photos on Instagram to show the staff. Questions like these, photography 101 things, are being asked by these "professional" photographers on a daily basis. Granted, this phenomenon isn't unique to film photography. The advances in digital photography has lower the entry bar so much that now everyone is a "professional" photographer these days as long as anyone has the gall to demand money for shooting. But I digress.

Anyway, it's just a rant. Tell me how you feel about this fad.

[Alan Klein]

Maybe when they get bored with film, they'll take up bowling.

[Wishegan]

The attitude that film photography is a fad with zeroing in on the younger generation and how it is anecdotally naive drives away the new members of the community. A top priority of this forum should be to welcome the young ones who have an interest, not to make them feel insecure. Film photography is magic. I wasn’t there but it’s hard to believe the last generation did not “suffer” from the same points above, the luxury was that the norm was film so it’s harder to be uneducated.

[Ulophot]

Hi, Tom-Thomas. As you may have seen from my recent thread relating to this subject, I see it rather differently. There are always fads, of course, and this certainly has a large component of that, as your anecdotal observations illustrate. One can view many of the countless YouTube videos/channels on film photography and infer the same. (I don’t visit Facebook, TikTok, or other so-called social media, so I don’t have much to say about them. I don’t watch TV either, but that’s another story.) However, there are other components to the picture, of a more serious nature, and time will tell how far or extensively they may take hold among a certain percentage of enthusiast photographers internationally.

My view of the overall situation involves more than I can go through here. I would suggest, however, that a confluence of economic and social factors has been heading for quite some time toward an major cultural inflection point, at which matters may turn one way or another. One such direction would be a new appreciation for the reality, that we human beings need a number of physical things to meet our needs, including food, clothing, shelter, energy sources, and so forth, and that a need exists to return to certain standards for their production and organization. Such a change relies on policy issues that lie outside the purpose of this forum, so I will not say more on them here.

The nascent, natural increase of concern during the past decade and more, over this physical basis of our existence, I believe, is part of what informs at least the more serious of those finding, or returning to, film photography, whether they are conscious of it or not. As I mentioned in the other thread, one hears a clear refrain among many such enthusiasts, voicing an enjoyment of slowing down, participating in the craft, anticipating the results, and valuing the physical products, i.e., prints. I don’t believe it to be confined to photography. I hear similar voicings among educators at all levels, as well as among people in all sorts of professions who have tired of the shallowness and blitz factors of the media barrage in general and are finding pathways involving more of an investment of their intellect and deeper emotions.

There are certainly generational differences at play, yielding the kinds of behavior you have witnessed and reported. Again, I think it would be inappropriate for me to say too much about that in this forum. In any case, I think there is reason for more optimism than might arise from your observations.

[r.e.]

Anyway, it's just a rant.

Yup.

[jp]

Nothing new under the sun. These same problems with the general public and film technique and ignorance about negatives could be from 1990 except for the insta references. It wasn't a fad then.

[jnantz]

(2) One time, when the store personnel asked a 20-something whether or not he wanted the negatives back, the young man went, "The what now?" So the store personnel pull up a roll of sample negatives to show him. The guy asked, "What is this brown thing?" He was puzzled.

if someone drops their film off at a pharmacy or Walmart where FujiFIlm picks up ( they are the last large national drop off lab that picks up at these places ) they don't return the negatives either. Walmart and cvs/rite aid/walgreens don't pay for the return freight so they beam the files to the kiosk to be printed by the dye sub printer when they are ready and the store burns a CD of images. a lot of people don't care about the negatives and if I remember back to growing up, we have lots of photo albums with prints in them ( and that sticky film ) and no negatives they must be stored somewhere else that we'll never find LOL. that was the 60s and 70s and 80s and 90s. .. film negatives are a pain unless you print them yourself or have some sort of filing mechanism. I have 3ring binders full of film stacks of print files, and empty 4x5 and 5x7 boxes full of negatives I'm sure it wouldn't matter if they vanished tomorrow.

[Alan Klein]

Film itself went through changes even before digital. Let's see. We have large format, medium format, and then 35mm became really popular. We had only prints at first, then with 35mm especially we moved into slide projection. We started with BW and then color became paramount. Negative film and then positive slide film In between all of that, Polaroid instant film became really popular too. Things ebb and flow. Now with digital, things change as well. P&S, micro 4/3, DSLRs, MF, now the mirrors and optical viewfinders have been removed and we have all electronic displays. Photos are mainly shown on cellphones, on monitors, from the web, and on 4K smart TVs. Oh. Still cameras shoot videos clips as well, so we've become videographers.

Let's face it. We're never going to return to film as it were. But there probably will be enough people who are interested in the method to keep manufacturers invested because they can make some money from it. Meanwhile, just enjoy it.

[Sal Santamaura]

On one hand I am extremely happy about this recent renewal of interest in film photography among the younger crowd, which in no small part has saved film photography from being totally obsolete. But on the other hand, I wonder how long this fad will last and when it finally fades away, then what will become of film photography?...

I'm fortunate to be old enough and have enough film and Azo paper stockpiled that I won't be concerned when the fad, along with increasing film sales volume, fades away.

...Tell me how you feel about this fad.

Sad, especially for those who refuse to accept the reality of its inevitable end.

[ic-racer]

My youngest will be taking photography at school next year. Apparently there is a darkroom so I suspect film will be in the curriculum.

We really are in the golden age of photography, there is more B&W film available in every size imaginable at my fingertips. Film cameras are still inexpensive. Just got another Nikon f100 like new in box for $150.
I have every piece of pro darkroom equipment I ever dreamed about.